Hearken to me, ye that are so readily cast down: some of these depths you never need wish to know, for they would not be to your advantage but to your loss. The dark side of much that is called Christian experience is not the work of the Holy Spirit at all. In many it is occasioned by a natural crabbedness of disposition: some are so hard that God must use iron wedges with them before their hearts will be reached. There are men with such a proud spirit that they need to be brought down to feed swine before they will arise and go to their Father. Others are obstinate, and wear a brow of brass; and these must be made faint with labor before they will yield. In many instances, the mental distress which attends the work of the Spirit is produced by sickness of body: it is not repentance but indigestion or some other evil agency depressing the spirits. A sluggish liver will produce most of those fearsome forebodings which we are so ready to regard as spiritual emotions. There is such a blending of the physical with the mental that it is hard to name our feelings. All the experience of a Christian man is not Christian experience. The troubled man experiences a good deal, not because he is a Christian, but because he is a man, a sickly man, a man inclined to melancholy. Why will you envy such a person? Do you want to feel his despondency? Do you really desire disease? Do you think you could trust God better if you had a morbid mind and a disordered body? What nonsense! I do not admire your taste; I think you are very foolish.
In multitudes of instances the strange depressions which befall some excellent people are the result of external trouble, of grinding poverty, of frequent bereavements, or of excessive labor. These things may greatly intensify the bitterness of spiritual distress. Do you want affliction? Do you really think that poverty or bankruptcy would help you to believe in God? Give some men a holiday by the sea and their dark thoughts vanish. Were they ever desirable? In desiring what would only grieve you, you remind me of a child that would always cry until its mother said, “What! Do you cry for nothing? You shall have something to cry for before long.” If you covet grief, and even dare to threaten the Lord that you will not believe him unless he vexes you, it may be that he will deal with you according to your desires, and then you will cry in earnest on the other side of your mouth.
Frequently the great darkness through which many true people of God pass is occasioned by Satan. He delights to torment the child of God with blasphemous suggestions or with foul imaginations. Do any of you say, because you are a stranger to this, “We cannot believe”? Why, dear soul, you must be out of your mind to talk so. Bless God with all your heart that you are a stranger to this horrible temptation. Never be so insane as to wish for this dreadful trial. These temptations may come quite soon enough. Desire them? Never, while reason remains to you!
Do you not think too, that many are more deeply convinced of sin and more seriously tried and more fiercely tempted than others, because the Lord has a special design to answer in them? Even when the terrible searching work within is all real, you need not wish for it, for it may not be needful in your case, since God has not the same intention towards you that he has towards the much tempted one. Much more is wanted by way of foundation for a lofty tower than for a humble cottage; and so the grand public life of such a man may need more digging out by inward sorrow than your more private life can possibly require. Our Lord may also be shaping the tried soul for special work. If a man is to be a son of consolation to others, he must be much exercised himself. Barnabas must have tasted the wormwood and the gall, or he cannot mix the cup of consolation for others.
Remember that all Christians are not, and cannot be, of the same calibre. We are all soldiers brethren, but we are not all champions. God calls upon everyone that believes in Christ to fight his battles, but many of us are happy to belong to the rank and file. We cannot all be captains. Only here and there shall we find a David, who with his sling and his stone shall go forth, a solitary champion against gigantic Philistines. For David it was needful that he should fight lions and boars in his youth, or he would not have faced the giant. If God sends us less of inward and outward trials than others, he knows best. We need enough sorrow to drive us from self and carnal confidence, and when that is effected it would be folly to sigh for more. Our wisdom is to leave our experience with the Lord, who will appoint us sun or shade as best will suit our growth. Let us envy no man his standing upon Tabor or Pisgah, and on the other hand let us never desire to make excursions with the Lord’s Jonahs, and go with them to the bottoms of the mountains. Seek not to copy another man’s ups or downs, but wait on God, and put thy trust in him, even though thou shouldst seem to thyself to be more foolish than any other living man.
II. Secondly and very briefly: a sense of inferiority must not keep us from learning. Suppose you have to say “I am more brutish than any man,” you have so much the more need of being taught the things of God. If you have not the understanding of a man there is so much more cause that you should go to school to the Holy Spirit, till the eyes of your understanding shall be enlightened, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Vital truth is simple. A great many things are hard to understand, but that which is essential to salvation is not difficult. To know thyself a sinner and Christ a Savior, is this a deep mystery? To quit thine own self and thine own trusts simply to rely upon the person and work of the Son of God, is this exceedingly difficult to understand? The safest truth is the simplest. Commonly an invention in machinery grows more simple as it nears perfection; and because God’s way of salvation is perfect, therefore it is simplicity itself. You can know the gospel, for it is not a tough metaphysical problem, but a revelation which he that runs may read.
If thou art staggered by the sublimity of heavenly learning, consider that these things are revealed to babes. Our Lord said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Therefore, if you are more than ever conscious of your spiritual babyhood, be none the less assured that the Lord can and will reveal his truths to you.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
